Amy Smith: Gentlewoman and Faithful Servant

Collections volunteer Philip Spinks sheds light on the life and death of Amy Smith, companion and faithful servant to Joyce, Countess of Totnes.

Phil Spinks
03 Aug 2018

The Clopton Chapel in Holy Trinity Church

We know almost nothing of the millions of people listed in the nation’s
parish registers: unless known to us already, they
are names only. This would have been the case for Amy Smith, who features in the
burial register of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, were it not for a
memorial plaque for her in the church. As will be seen the dates of death and
funeral seem improbable, although not impossible.

On 17 September 1626 the funeral of ‘Mris Amis Smith’
was entered into the burial register. Amy was buried in the church under the
direction of her long-term employer Joyce, Countess of Totnes; it was Joyce who
had the memorial placed in the Clopton Chapel: a rectangular panel enclosing
the image of a woman, dressed in a black gown and white ruff kneeling at a prie
dieu (kneeling bench), with a tribute to the late Amy:

‘Heere
lyeth interred ye Body of Mris. / Amy Smith, who being about ye age of / 60
yeares and a maide departed this life / at Nonsuch in Surrey / ye 13th
day of Sep. / Ao Dni. 1626. She attended upon the / Right Hnble.
Joyce Ladie Carew, Coun / tesse of Totness, as her waiting gen / tlewoman ye
space of 40 yeares together, / being very desirous in her life tyme / that
after her death she might be laide / in this church of Stratford where her /
Lady ye said Countesse also her selfe / intended to be buried and accordinglie
to / fullfill her request and for her so long / trew & faithfull servis ye
said Right / Hoble. Countess as an evident oaken / of her affection towards her
not onely / caused her body to be brought from Nonsuch heither & here honorably
buried . But also did cause this monument and / superscription to be erected in
a / grateful memorie of her whom / she had foun so good a servant.’

A fulsome epitaph indeed. Few servants can have been memorialised
in such a way, fewer still transported over a hundred miles for burial. But
what is telling about this plaque is that it is of common freestone, indicating that however loyal and efficient Amy had been, her status did not
warrant marble or alabaster.

Joyce was the daughter of William Clopton of Clopton House, one
mile north of Stratford-upon-Avon. She married George Carew in 1580 at the Holy
Trinity Church. George was a twenty-five-year-old soldier statesman, later the
earl of Totnes, a member of the courts of Elizabeth I and James I. As well as
inheriting Clopton House, the couple had a house in the Savoy in London and, as
is shown in Amy’s epitaph, also used Nonsuch Palace in Surrey (Henry VIII’s prestigious
palace, which by the Carews’ time was falling into disrepair).

Amy joined the Carew household in about 1585. It is not known from
where she came, but it may have been Stratford, and Amy may have hailed from the
gentry. The historian Antonia Fraser suggests that, at that time, the only
‘respectable profession’ for an unmarried woman of good breeding and education
‘was that of “gentlewoman” or waiting-woman to another prosperous female’.
Fraser describes the position of a gentlewoman of the time: ‘ a companion,
confidante or what would now be termed a personal secretary to a great lady,
enjoy[ing] a powerful and protected position which had little of the menial
about it.’ So, we can be assured Amy was not a general servant, and quite
possibly she had received an education.

Amy Smith never married and was obviously very attached to her
mistress Joyce; the attachment was mutual, which is clear from the above
inscription. The loss of such a faithful servant – more likely a great friend after
forty years – must have been devastating to Joyce. George Carew died in London
in March 1629 and was buried in Holy Trinity Church a month later. The widowed
Joyce was buried with her husband on 28 January 1636/7. The couple are
memorialised by the very grand monumental tomb in the Clopton Chapel, beside
which is Amy Smith’s memorial plaque.

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